Dressed with a smile
Jasper honors late friend with smiley face pin
Joe Poli, left, and Jeff Jasper pose together in 1985. The PV Christmas Tournament was renamed to the Joe Poli Memorial Holiday Tournament in order to commemorate the late principal and Jasper’s friend.
Joe Poli always showed up to work in the same outfit and the same smiley face pin. Now, almost 30 years after his death, his close friend Jeff Jasper wears his own smiley face pin in memory of him.
From 1978 to 1989, Poli was the principal of Pascack Valley and was a close friend of history teacher and girls varsity basketball coach Jeff Jasper. However, on Aug. 1, 1989, Poli was riding his bicycle when he suffered an aneurysm and passed away.
In tribute to Poli, the girls basketball PV Christmas Tournament was renamed by Jasper to be the Joe Poli Memorial Holiday Tournament immediately after his passing. This past Dec. 30, the PV girls varsity basketball team won this tournament for the second year in a row, giving Jasper his 997th career win.
He said that PV winning the tournament gives him a moment to talk about his late friend as a person.
“The tournament is in his honor,” Jasper said. “And what it does is give me an opportunity to talk to my team about him and about what kind of great person he was and how they too can be a Joe Poli.”
Poli founded Smile, an initiative which focused on doing random acts of kindness, according to Jasper.
Jeff Jasper has a business card from Smile, Joe Poli’s initiative to make the world a better place by performing random acts of kindness.
“There is not a lot to say about [Smile] other than that he was the founder, the president, and the only member,” Jasper said.
“I’ll always of course say that the most influential male in my life is my father, but second to my father, the most influential male in my life was Joe Poli,” he added.
Jasper described Poli to be “non-judgemental, totally supportive, warm, caring, and compassionate.”
“I always realized how special he was to my dad, but last year in the locker room after we won the tournament, my dad gave a little speech at the end that was really heartwarming,” said Justin Jasper, Jeff’s son as well as one of his assistant coaches. “It was in that moment that I remembered how special he was and how special their bond was.”
Jeff Jasper’s wife, Lois Jasper, added that Poli’s son and daughters come to the tournament.
Before Poli’s death, he and Jeff spent a lot of time together both in and out of school.
“He became principal at PV, and at the time, I was the senior class advisor, and so I worked with him a lot,” Lois said. “My husband at the time was the athletic director so they also worked together closely.”
She said that their friendship “just clicked right away.”
Jeff remembers them training together, running together, biking together, swimming together, and competing in triathlons and marathons together.
“They were a little crazy in terms of athletic endeavors, but they obviously became very close because of that,” Lois said.
Nowadays, Jeff Jasper wears a smiley face pin to work and basketball games, and also has smiley faces around his classroom. It is the unofficial official logo of Poli.
Justin Jasper, left, smiles with Lois Jasper and Jeff Jasper. They all wear the smiley face pin in memory of Joe Poli to each game.
“My kids loved him,” Jasper said. “My son Justin wears a smiley face pin everyday to Holdrum Middle School [where he works as Vice Principal].”
Another way Jasper spreads Poli’s legacy is through living by his friend’s 3 C’s: caring, commitment, and character. He puts these words on shirts and preaches them to his team.
“Nobody was influenced by him as much as I was,” he said.
Poli’s influence spread beyond his friend; Jeff said the late principal changed PV for the better.
“If anybody bled green and white, it was him,” he said.
Jasper says that before Poli was the principal at PV, it was like the “wild west,” with students smoking everywhere, doing drugs, and not being held accountable.
“Slowly, he made the changes necessary and is one of the reasons we are such a great school today,” he said. “He put the foundation in place for where we are. We are coming up on 30 years of his death, and yet his legacy is still felt.”
Jasper still admires Poli to this day. He says he learned a great deal from Poli about how to treat people. Jasper added that he could “never figure out where he got the hours in the day to do all the great things he did.”
“I always say to my team and anyone that wants to know about Joe Poli: ‘I hope that in your life you meet someone like Joe Poli,’” he said. “‘And I hope that you become a Joe Poli for someone else.’”
